The New York Times this week makes the case that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is jeopardizing the Obama administration’s efforts to come to an agreement with Iran over the Shiite theocracy’s nuclear ambitions. The paper also fails to make clear that one of Obama’s top people in the Iran talks participated in the failed negotiations to stop North Korea’s nuclear program.
Washington and Tehran are expected to strike a deal over Iran’s nuclear program by the end of March. Israeli officials say the details of the agreement are being kept secret. Netanyahu, whose campaign to raise consciousness of Iran’s ambition to possess nuclear weapons has in the past included a hand-drawn bomb chart, in January accepted an invitation to address Congress.
House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, asked Netanyahu to give an address on March 3. Netanyahu is facing an election in the Holy Land March 17.
The Obama administration reacted furiously to the invitation, and many Democratic lawmakers have announced plans to boycott the speech.
A reported news story in the Times takes the administration’s position with notable clarity, going on to suggest Netanyahu orchestrated the dispute.
“The tensions between the United States and Israel over negotiating with Tehran have a long and twisted history, and they plunged to a new low when Mr. Netanyahu engineered an invitation to address a joint meeting of Congress, in less than two weeks, to warn against a ‘bad deal,’” Times reporter David E. Sanger writes in an article titled “Fear of Israeli Leaks Fuels Distrust Over U.S. Talks With Iran.”
“Now, with Mr. Netanyahu maneuvering to survive a March 17 election, and Mr. Obama pressing for a breakthrough agreement that could end three decades of enmity with Iran and reduce the chances of a military confrontation, it seems that Washington and Jerusalem are engaging in the diplomatic equivalent of posting notes to each other on the refrigerator door,” Sanger goes on.
The notion that Boehner and Netanyahu blindsided the White House with the invitation appears to be inaccurate, according to other Times reporting on this issue.
In an article dated Jan. 29, the Times reported that Netanyahu accepted Boehner’s invitation to speak only “after the administration had been informed of the invitation, not before.”
According to the Times of Israel, the White House didn’t accuse Boehner and Netanyahu of “breaching protocol” until after it had already been notified of the event and the prime minister had accepted the invite.
“Of course, the truth is that the White House was never bypassed or circumvented. Netanyahu only accepted Speaker John Boehner’s invitation after he knew the White House had been informed and had a chance to object,” the Times of Israel reported. “[O]bama White House said nothing, and Netanyahu… decided to accept Boehner’s invitation to speak to congress and help provide an impetus for legislation on Iranian sanctions that’s in both Israel and America’s interest.”
Boehner, himself, however, added to the confusion recently by saying he told Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., Ron Dermer, not to inform the White House of the invitation.
“I wanted to make sure there was no interference,” Boehner told Fox News’ Chris Wallace. “There’s no secret here in Washington about the animosity that this White House has for Prime Minister Netanyahu. I frankly didn’t want them getting in the way and quashing what I thought was a real opportunity.”
Still, there appears to be little to support the Grey Lady’s suggestion that it was Netanyahu who engineered the speech and its fallout.
Sanger lays sole blame on Netanyahu for the fraying bonds between Israel and the United States, though Obama stated early in his presidency that he hoped to loosen the close ties between Washington and Jerusalem.
“Look at the past eight years,” Obama reportedly said in 2009, referring to the Bush administration’s relationship with Israel. “During those eight years, there was no space between us and Israel, and what did we get from that? When there is no daylight, Israel just sits on the sidelines, and that erodes our credibility with the Arab states.”
Concerning this reported comment from Obama, the Washington Post said that it “came to define his administration’s relationship with Israel — and the reason many … believe that his attempts to bring the two sides together failed in his first term.”
Elsewhere, the New York Times’ report on the upcoming Iranian nuclear refers to the lead U.S. negotiator, Undersecretary of State Wendy Sherman, without also mentioning her past involvement in a similar nuclear deal with North Korea that ended with Pyongyang in possession of nuclear weapons.
Citing an anonymous “European official,” the Times reported: “Wendy Sherman … cautioned against telling the Israelis too much because the details could be twisted to undermine a deal.”
“A State Department official speaking on her behalf said that she had encouraged the Europeans to talk with Israel — as long as they were cognizant ‘that the negotiation should take place in the negotiating room,’” the Times reported.
Sherman participated in a 1999 deal wherein the U.S. agreed to give North Korea millions of dollars worth of food and oil in return for promises it would not arm itself with nuclear weapons.
Since that time, North Korea has “rapidly [increased] its stockpile of nuclear weapons material,” Bloomberg reports.
“North Korea could have enough material for 79 nuclear weapons by 2020,” Bloomberg notes, citing estimates from the Institute for Science and International Security.
Sanger also neglects comments by Iran’s sometimes-conciliatory President Hassan Rouhani that call into question Sanger’s presumption that Obama’s dealmaking would in fact “end three decades of enmity with Iran.”
“In our region there’s been a wound for years on the body of the Muslim world under the shadow of the occupation of the holy land of Palestine and the beloved al-Quds (Jerusalem),” Rouhani said in 2013, according to a translation by the Reuters news agency.
Iran’s president has also more than once dodged questions about whether he believes in the size and scope of the Holocaust, saying at one time: “I’m not a historian. I’m a politician.”
And although Rouhani appears mild toward Israel when compared to his predecessor Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Associated Press report notes that “no Iranian leader is likely to diverge from Iran’s longstanding denunciations” of Israel.
Iran has long considered Israel to be its “archenemy,” a point that is absent from the Times report, as are most other indications of why Netanyahu may have solid reasons to be wary of any dealings with Iran.
A spokesperson for the Times declined the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
